Boy Toy

After five years of fighting his way past flickers of memory about the teacher who molested him and the incident that brought the crime to light, eighteen-year-old Josh gets help in coping with his molester's release from prison when he finally tells his best friends the whole truth.

This book was absolutely heartbreaking to read. I cried when we get to his main revelation, where he realizes that he was actually a victim, had been targetted from the very first. Am very glad to have read it because the writing was brilliant.

jmmason
Aug 17, 2012

Americans love to pretend that children don't know anything about sex. I would like to read a story about a boy who enjoyed having sex with an adult. Surely, they aren't all traumatized by sex as teenagers. Most male teens adore sex. They aren't all victims.

Barry Lyga's second novel is a tour de force. This is not an easy ready, but it is an important read. By choosing the male victim of molestation by a female teacher, Lyga is taking on the myth of the older woman initiating a young man into the arts of love. He is also pointing out that not all pedophiles are men.

Lyga walks a very fine line in this book between exploitation literature and moralism. In doing so, he hits just the the right note. Lyga has created a main character who is not just a one-dimensional victim. Josh is smart, athletic but has difficulty interacting with others. He sabotages his relationships with those around them both on purpose and without knowing.

This book is a must read for those thinking of entering teaching. It is also appropriate for those students in Grade 9 and up as there are some very mature scenes. Parents would do well to also read this as Lyga has his pulse on how the youth brain works.

I like how Lyga explores the uncomfortable contradictions in how people react to the sexual exploitation of young boys by attractive women. As a thirteen-year-old boy, Josh gets mixed reactions from the adults in his life, who frequently switch between treating his experiences as traumatic sexual manipulation and as every young teenage boy's wet dream. The central conflict in the novel is never Josh's anger at the teacher who abused him--it is always his sense of guilt and feeling that he is a "pervert" for wanting her. It's a book that doesn't oversimplify the experiences of its protagonist for the sake of drama. Definitely worth a read if its fairly realistic psychology interests you.

This book will bring you on a roller coaster of emotions. From beginning to the end you will love this novel. When I first read this novel I was transfixed; I don't know how much I can stress how amazing this book is and how much I recommend it!!!

Summary

First off, here’s a description of the book. Josh Mendel, a high school senior, meets up with Rachel, a girl he thought he lost shortly after his thirteenth birthday. To make a long story short, he was found in the closet with her, ripping off her panties while playing a party game that was half “Spin the Bottle” and half “Seven Minutes in Heaven”. As if that wasn’t bad enough, just when Rachel’s family was about to press charges, he accidentally mentions that he’s been screwing around with his seventh-grade history teacher for the past year. Josh has lived through therapy, lawsuits, and baseball coaches dumb enough to crack jokes about this situation, but he still can’t put everything behind him, not even when Rachel’s dying to get back together with him after being alone for five years.

Kadie2
Aug 17, 2012

Josh, an eighteen-year-old that everyone steers clear of, has been dealing with flashblacks of being molested by his teacher for five years. He gets help dealing with his troubles from the girl who opened the door on all his secrets.